


Three Knocks in the Night

by ThesecondMacha



Category: InuYasha - A Feudal Fairy Tale, 半妖の夜叉姫 | Hanyou no Yashahime | Yashahime: Princess Half-Demon (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Dark, Dubious Consent, F/M, Gen, Gore, Horror, Original Character Death(s), References to Depression, Romance, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-23
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-14 01:47:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 19,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29660574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThesecondMacha/pseuds/ThesecondMacha
Summary: For the entirety of her youth, or at least since she had arrived on her grandmother's door as an orphaned child, Rin Akamatsu had dreamed of nothing more than leaving the monotony of Shirakawa. But after a stint at college, a troubled Rin must return to the familiarity of her childhood home mute and seeking a place to safely withdraw from the world. Only to find, that despite the sleepy familiarity of its surface, that something dark and simmering has followed her there. Realizing she can no longer run from the horrors of the world and convinced her new neighbor is the source of the change, Rin will undergo her greatest challenge yet as she is forced to fight for those she loves. Along the way she will discover that the worst demons don't always dwell within us, sometimes they lurk right next door.
Relationships: Rin & Sesshoumaru (InuYasha), Rin/Sesshoumaru (InuYasha)
Comments: 15
Kudos: 33





	1. Uhtceare

The third and final moving van arrived on a Sunday, well into the evening as to avoid the earlier earned audience of the neighborhood. It was autumn and the already gloomy night was made darker by the absence of the moon. A shade of incandescent ruby lit the pavement and traveled down the street as the large vehicle pulled to a stop in front of the house.

The men were swift but it had been the wind that had favored them up until that point, howling and whipping with a timing that bordered on too coincidental to be natural. The great gusts and moans weaved and spun between the house that lined Shonen street and allowed them more than the cover of night to move the ornate pieces from the truck and into the waiting home. The red glow was steady in its glancing as the movers traveled back and forth, their legs blocking the brake lights with their pace, but one by one the job was completed without hitch or notice.

That was until the third and final van was gone, leaving only a lone figure to ascend the small steps of the paved walkway that led to the front door. Each poised step of the patent leather Oxfords made a barely-there hiss as the imposing figure moved towards his destination.

At the halfway point he paused, statuesque, though there was not a soul up to see as a luminescent hand, so pale it bordered on silver, reached out from under his cloak to clasp the “For Sale” sign from next to the path. It was redundant now, and it was then in that moment as the new owner continued his ascension that the wind from before gave out. A sudden malace* rushed in as abruptly as the wind before it, and a hush settled over the desolate street as the man moved over the threshold and into the house.

The click of a door sliding shut woke her. The gentle tap of it somehow reaching her second-story bedroom as Rin sat up in a panic, remnants of the dream that had plagued her before lingering in the most awful and unfortunately, usual of ways.

She had woken twice prior. Each time a different angle of the sun streamed through her curtains and each time she had listened in her torpor from the confines of her bed as groups of men shouted to one another over the rumble of what sounded like a truck. Though it was not until this time after she had slept the day away, that her unyielding lethargy lifted enough for her to rise from the tangled sheets.

One wrinkled blanket dragged behind her and onto the floor as the slender girl made her way to the set of windows that faced out the side of her home. From there she could see into the house that sat directly next to her grandmother’s as well as their lawn and backyard. She was sure this was where the rousing sound had come from. The house had been empty, abandoned really, for all of Rin’s childhood. So despite her suspicions from earlier in the day, it was still a shock to see that the semi-permanent sales sign was now gone.

A fog had settled over then, ominous in its movements so that Rin had to rub her eyes to confirm. Gone were the unhindered views into the empty space that she’d often studied in her youthful solitude; it seemed they now had a neighbor. The gravity of the seemingly common-place event was lost on her, would be lost until it was far too late to change the course of fate. It would not be until the young woman returned to the nest of her bed and even longer after that, that she would come to realize. Whoever had moved in next door had roused her from a sleep to which she would never return.

…..

_“I heard he’s foreign,”_

_“The attractive ones always are. Mari was telling me the same thing at church last Sunday. Where do you think he’s from?”_

_“That’s just it Arisa, I’m telling you, no one has been able to figure anything out about him. Nothing.”_

_“Hmmm, he’s for sure foreign then. Maybe Spain?”_

_“No definitely not- I swear I waited at the kitchen window every day for a week to get a glimpse. Had to pretend to wash dishes for over an hour so the hubby wouldn’t suspect. He’s too fair-skinned,”_

_“Naughty, naughty. So South America is out as well?”_

_“Definitely. He looks so suave….I bet it’s France,”_

_“I’ll be sure to tell Mari, maybe she’ll have some more info next Sunday. At least it’s finally interesting around here,”_

_“True- let me know what she says. Did you hear though?”_

_“About?”_

_“Kaede’s granddaughter is back in town,”_

_“The deaf one your daughter went to school with? I thought she left for college,”_

_“No, she’s like mute or something. Well, it must have fallen through. I saw her sitting on the porch the other day.”_

_“Wasn’t she like only there a year?_

_“I think so-if even that,”_

_“Heh, surprise, surprise.”_

_“Doesn’t work or leave the house. The girl is practically a hermit.”_

….

“Oh really? That must have been so exhilarating, moving to the big city. What were you studying?”

The woman looked at Rin, expectant, from where she sat at their kitchen table. Kaede glanced at Rin to see if she was going to respond, but when the girl just gave their neighbor a shy glance and continued to snap peas she knew her granddaughter would remain silent. She’d left for school excited and talking, but had returned sometime in the summer in the same state that she had initially arrived in when she was seven. Once again as silent as the grave.

The quiet sat too long to be casual so Kaede spoke up, “She was studying horticulture, Megumi.”

Brown eyes shifted between the granddaughter and grandmother. “Right-” she coughed nervously, “I uh, have been meaning to talk to you about something though.” A lilt of excitement entered her voice again as she hurriedly moved on.

Kaede, glad for the change in topic, responded in kind, “About what, my dear?”

“About that new man that just moved in,” The woman looked around conspiratorially.

“Oh Kaede, I’ve just,” the woman took a long pull of the drink her grandmother had set before her before fanning herself in exaggeration, “I’ve just never seen anyone so handsome. Have you gone over to introduce yourself yet? The rest of us have been jumping at the bit. Surely, you’ve at least caught a glimpse or two?”

The woman took another gulp, the strength of it bobbing her neck muscles.

Kaede shifted a look over her shoulder with the eye that wasn’t bandaged before she turned back to continue rummaging for the requested herbs. The woman at their table had long forgotten her request for them, gossip taking a higher priority after she sat down. Though Rin got the distinct impression this latest choice of topic was the one she had been waiting to bring up from the start. Despite the overstay, she still showed no sign of leaving and instead now seemed to be working overtime to glean any information her grandmother had on the newest addition to their town.

The lady who lived across and diagonal, as she reminded Rin upon entry, started again, “I told Atsushi if he didn’t shape up I was going to leave him for the nameless hunk. Do you know his name?” She laughed out loud like it had been a joke.

Kaede turned back towards their kitchen table chuckling softly, herbs in hand, “I’m sorry Megumi. I can’t say I’ve ever seen the man-” her grandmother scratched her chin as she thought, “Though if I did I didn’t realize it was him.”

Rin watched the disappointment cross her features as Megumi pouted in response.

The grandmother gave her a kind smile as she packed a small jar of dashi powder for their guest, “But you certainly aren’t the first to tell me about him.”

And though her grandmother was in fact as kind as she presented, Rin could still hear the tell. The whole neighborhood had done nothing but talk of the newest addition and Kaede as the resident elder had heard all about the latest object of gossip and as consequence so had Rin.

Ever since the mysterious man had moved in next to them it seemed every woman in their neighborhood, young and old, had decided she needed to pay a visit to Kaede. A valid reason always on hand, but still, the real motivation would eventually worm its way out.

“Well, you’d definitely know if you had; the man is absolutely gorgeous. It’s been too long since we had any eye candy around here.”

Kaede drew back and placed her hands on her hips, “I’m sure he’s much too young for me anyway,” they laughed together then. “Besides, between volunteering at the rec center and the hospital, I’ve hardly been at home.”

“Of course, but still,” the woman brought a manicured hand up to grab at the bag Kaede had set out for her. “Can you keep an eye out for me? Everyone in town has been dying to know more about him. He’s just so mysterious. I’m sure Rin can-''

Rin felt the intrusive woman’s gaze before she paused her speech and fought the urge to squirm from her perch at the island’s barstools, where she still sat, silently snapping peas for their dinner. Her eyes rose just in time to see the pity-filled glance the woman was giving her before she realized Rin was staring. Face immediately tightening in a polite but small smile as she attempted to avoid the awkward faux pas.

Megumi let out a nervous laugh as she lifted from her seat. “Thank you Kaede for all the help, but I should probably get going before Atsushi gets home from work.”

Kaede lifted a hand for her to pass as she walked her out. It was an unintended consequence of acknowledging the woman but Rin wouldn’t lie and say she wasn’t relieved to see her sudden and overdue departure. When Megumi wasn’t looking her grandmother shot Rin a look as they walked by the kitchen island, a queue to follow.

In the entryway, they waited as Kaede shuffled in front to unlock the door and the woman stopped to inspect herself in the front mirror that her grandmother had beside the coat rack. Arrested by her appearance, she hadn’t noticed her silent audience, and Rin watched as she made sure her hair was still perfectly quaffed and in order before moving on to her makeup.

A single age-revealing hand up to her face before a finger moved to tidy up the eyeliner that had shifted into her foundation-covered crow’s feet. Rin remembered her as she puckered her lipstick-painted lips at herself in the mirror, ensuring even distribution. She and her family had moved in a year after Rin had come to live with her grandmother. At that time she’d had kids though, two sons, roughly Rin’s age. She briefly wondered where they were now. The woman was now in the process of lifting and pressing her cleavage together. She’d have to pass the new neighbor’s house on her way back.

Kaede pulled the front door open for them, the gentle lighting of the afternoon sun pouring in the foyer, “I’ll be sure to keep an eye out for him, Megumi. Please let me know if you need anything else.”

The woman stopped abruptly as the light from the now open door, shocked that Rin’s silent presence was there as well.

She laughed nervously before spinning around, “Of course Kaede- thanks again! You’re a doll,”

Megumi started for the door before thinking better. She turned to Rin suddenly enough that the poor girl almost gasped before grasping the small girl by her upper arms, manicured fingers wrapping around as she bent a little to be at eye level with the younger woman.

She started loudly, every word enunciated and slowed down so that Rin could see a bit of spit come out after each syllable. “And you too dear, take care of yourself, Lynn.”

Rin responded the way she had for the last half a year she had been back home, with silence. She blinked at the woman and she released her. When she turned around to make her leave, Rin brought a hand to rub at her skin, where the indent of the woman’s manicured claws remained.

A pair of mismatched eyes caught her own from behind the door and Kaede just shook her head.

After they were once again encased in the darkened foyer her grandmother shuffled past, “Come on girl. Finish the peas and I’ll let you go back to bed.”

Kaede had long given up on getting Rin to talk since her most recent return home. Any rousing and questioning on her part had yielded nothing the same as the first time Rin had shown up at her home, orphaned and mute.

Kaede did not know what could bring a young girl like Rin, who had no greater ambition than leaving the little town they resided in for college, to come crawling back in the middle of the night. Like a worker took to bed after a hard day’s labor. But she’d have to wait until her granddaughter came out with it.

Rin noticed none of this though, as her eyes accidentally shifted to the mirror Megumi had taken advantage of earlier. She studied the reflection of herself that had scared Megumi back home. And found she could focus on little more than holding gazes with the girl that stared back at her. It was awful how stark her greasy features appeared against the off-white of the foyer wall, at how clearly defined the lines of her still were….

Rin followed her grandmother then, angry that despite her best efforts, it seemed she had yet to master the art of fading completely away.

….

_“He’s handsome, tall, and supposedly thirty-six,”_

_“What? No way. Hanna told me he has a full head of grey-probably forties, fifties max. Not that it bothers me- I love an established man,”_

_“I’ve seen him twice and it looks more silver than grey. She’s a looney. The man is clearly in his prime,”_

_“Well, if that’s the case, hopefully, he’s one of those Maruki Gentlemen. You know, the ones that date older women,”_

_“We should be so lucky!”_

_“Risa Takashi told me he’s an investment banker.”_

_“I’m not sure but it has to be something like that. I mean have you seen what they’ve done with that old place? The whole thing was gutted. Even has a pool now,”_

_“Definitely something remote; Himari said she hardly ever sees him leave for work.”_

_“Either way, the man has money,”_

…...

He was hideous and short.

Yet they would not stop talking about him. Rin continued to throw sneaking glances up at the figure of the small man that was furiously hammering something on the woodworking table he’d set up on his porch. The same next-door porch she’d watched grow over with wisteria and dust over the years of her childhood.

The same man that had captured the imaginations of all the women in town...looked like a toad. She continued to sweep their porch and sneaking glances as the man fussed over whatever he was working on to himself from between the railing-made window of their adjacent porches.

Rin quietly decided then that Megumi was insane, something she’d long suspected, but it did not quite explain the hysteria that seemed to have encompassed the rest of their little street. And whatever meager spark of curiosity that had lit within Rin was gone in a tenth of the time it took to start.

His textured skin was a shade closer to green than natural and his eyes seemed to bulge out of the sockets.

The man stopped hammering suddenly before bulgy eyes popped up to meet her own as he realized his audience. Still stuck in her thoughts she’d hardly noticed when her glances had shifted to a steady gaze. He gave her a sneer that highlighted his beak of a nose grotesquely and sent a shiver down her spine.

Absolutely hideous.

…

_“An Aston Martin?!”_

_“I freaking swear. Saw him the day before yesterday driving out of his garage.”_

_“God, so it must be true. He’s some sort of dignitary.”_

_“I wouldn’t doubt it. Girl, when he drove by I was taking Imai for a walk in the stroller my mother bought me so I got an up-close look at him,”_

_“Oooh and?”_

_“Ahh, pure heaven. He’s positively delicious. I had to stop and pick my jaw up off the sidewalk and rush back home,”_

_“Jesus, that good huh?”_

_“They aren’t exaggerating at all.”_

_“Who would have thought Shirakawa would have its own superstar. Successful, rich, and handsome. If only someone could get his name and we could look him up or something,”_

_“I know it’s almost too weird…,”_

_“...I thought the same. No one comes here. Don’t tell anyone but I got the old pharmacist at the grocery to see if they had anything on him. You know, like a prescription or something, and well there was nothing.”_

_“Same! I even tricked my husband into asking one of his friends on the police force and still nothing. Even with their connections.”_

_“It’s like he came out of thin air,”_

_“The mystery-makes him even sexier though,”_

_“True- hopefully he doesn’t up and leave anytime soon. We need to have him here until at least summer if we want to see him shirtless,”_

_“Shhhh, don’t say such a thing!”_

_Knock, knock, knock…_

_“Knock on wood.”_

…..

“I’ll just get these out of your way Kaede-sama-” the young man shouted across the lawn as his elder shuffled down her steps and towards him, a bag of sweets in tow.

“Just Kaede, son. You’re no stranger around here,” she gave a gentle smile, one good eye crinkling as she caught his eyes shifting to the girl who sat reading on her porch swing.

“Yeah of course,” he tied the bag of leaves, depositing them on the curb before taking the paper sack Kaede held in offer.

“I made those for you in thanks. You always did eat me out of house and home back in the day,” she gave him another fond smile before rolling her eyes to the girl he was still glancing at behind them.

“It’s the least I can do since my granddaughter should be doing this for me,” She looked back at the boy but he was still staring.

Eyes unmoving from her form, concern showing through, “It’s really no trouble at all Kaede. You don’t need to pay me anything. Dad won’t even know I took a detour,” he smiled at her but the old woman was quick, grabbing the bag back from the still distracted boy and peeking inside.

“This old brain of mine. I forgot to add the dango-follow me Kohaku, I’ll get you some real quick,” Kaede turned suddenly heading back for the house.

He was, despite his insistence to the contrary, going to be in trouble as it was for ditching their clients once his dad found out. Kohaku looked back at the company truck, “I uh- sure thing,” he followed slower though so that by the time he had made up his mind the old woman was already back inside. He got to the bottom of their steps before pausing in hesitation.

Rin was sitting cross-legged on the swing, a gentle breeze shifting her slightly, looking remarkably like the girl that he had grown up with and remembered from his youth. Life had cleaved them apart as swiftly as it had brought them together. He wasn’t sure what he had expected her to come back as after the last year they had been separated and the familiarity halted him.

He rubbed his hands nervously over the skin of his work jeans.

“Hey…,” Rin looked up at him as if noticing for the first time. He looked different. His skin was tanner from all the work he did outside and he looked a little older, face more chiseled than the last time they had seen each other. But it was the same boy from her youth, gangly and awkward to a fault, and the familiarity of him made her heart lurch.

He looked around nervously at her lack of response, “I uh, heard you came back from college…,”

Rin continued to look at him nervously. His calloused hands pushed into his front pockets. “Not talking again I see.”

Rin looked at him then and gave a small smile. It hurt her face. It hurt worse to realize that her heart raced a little faster in its fear for every moment the young man stayed near her porch. The porch of the home she had not left since she had returned all those months ago.

He kicked at a loose piece of gravel. She’d tried hard to move from her perch, maybe suggest a walk around the neighborhood as they had done when they were teenagers. But the thought of leaving the relative safety, even with an old friend like Kohaku, who she knew was more apt to hurt himself than her, left her shivering from more than the latent cold.

She looked beyond him and his gaze followed. The white pickup out front read, Nakamura Lawn Care and Extermination. It was a pity. He chuckled reading her from practice as he turned again to face her. “I caved Rin. Been working for the old man since you left for school,”. He and Sango must have sworn over a thousand times each that they’d never end up like their parents. Yet, their fate had crept in on them all the same. Just as it appeared Rin’s had as well. Though he’d keep that thought to himself.

“You’ll be sad to know Sango did as well,” he smiled more. Remembering the three of them hanging out and the promises they had made to each other in their youth.

Though he never thought she’d come back, he would not say the sight of her didn’t make his chest swell with something close to happiness. So he pushed forth, ignoring the hesitant look she was still giving him, the same one she’d given him when they were seven. Looking so forlorn and lost he couldn’t help but want to...

“Sango settled down too. Married some bum. I don’t know if you remember Miroku?” he scratched his chin, “probably not he was way older than us.”

Rin shook her head softly in the negative. A wayward wind shifted forcing her eyes to the side of her porch towards the neighbors. She had seen the work truck a couple of weeks ago though with his name on the side.

Kohaku eyed the newly bought house too as he made the connection, just as he had to do when they were little. “Yeah- his company helped with some of the maintenance after the sale.”

She shivered, and he laughed, still eyeing the freshly renovated home, “Heard from Miroku that they’re a bunch of weirdos. Got all this old furniture from like the medieval times.” This time she laughed too. A small twinge of desire hitting her for the first time in a long time. To tell him about all the stories she’d heard as well since every gossip in town had conveniently needed to see her grandmother for one thing or another as of late. Purely coincidence of course.

But it merely took a look at him again to waft it away. She pulled the flannel closer around her body in a protective motion that was not lost on him.

Kohaku pushed on though, just like he’d done all those years ago as a child when he’d chiseled her out of her muted state before. “He has some live-in helper, Miroku says he’s a real asshole. Talked down to them through all the installations.”

Helper? Rin’s eyes widened. Perhaps she had just seen the helper then. Her eyes unconsciously shifted to the now-empty porch where she had seen the hateful little man from before.

Kohaku was just about to seize on another opportunity to talk to her when Kaede reappeared.

“Here you go my boy,” she was twisting the bag and Kohaku moved closer to take it from her. The smile she wore was telling. It seemed her grandmother had more intentions than getting the lawn cared for when she had called Kohaku over.

“Well, I’ll leave you two out here. I still have some stuff in the oven,” Kaede made for her screen door again, tossing another conspiratorial smile at the young man that had always been so friendly with her granddaughter.

Kohaku nodded her off as he realized he too needed to get back to work. His dad was going to kill him anyway. Rin grabbed the book from where she left it on the swing and started after her grandmother.

“Rin, wait-”

He tapped his back pockets suddenly with his free hand as she paused to give him her attention again,

“I-- just wait a second-” he finally found what he was looking for and he extended his hand towards her. It was a business card. One his dad made him keep on hand for any potential clients. It had his cell listed though.

“Here. It has my number-” he watched her move to the edge of the porch slowly, flannel draping over her small frame to drag on the floorboards. “I tried calling your old one when I heard you were back but I never got through.”

Guilt rushed through her. She hadn’t bothered to turn the stupid cell phone on since she’d arrived home. It was still shoved somewhere in the folders of her long-forgotten backpack.

She stopped just short of the edge and leaned her arm as far as it could reach. It dawned on him then and he rushed to close the distance and hand her the stiff slip of paper. Try as she might she still could not make herself leave the safety of her home. Kohaku eyed her with an understanding smile. “Call me whenever, “

She took it from him without touching him and drew it back within the safety of the blanket and her body back under the cover of the porch. The shade of it filtered out the more angular parts of her face and he was once again reminded of the girl he had met all those years ago after Kaede had taken her in. Doe eyes so big they seemed to take up half her face looked down on him, and he felt himself smiling without force.

“We can do something together. Get you out of this house, “ he pulled his keys out, and with a brief hesitation and a single lingering look at his old friend he left.

Rin watched Kohaku’s family work truck turn from their street before her grandmother let her presence be known. Kaede’s voice met her ears from beyond the screen.

“If you won’t speak to me, girl, you need to speak with Kohaku.” A fragmented ache began in Rin’s chest at the voice, the guilt of shutting out her grandmother finally catching up.

“Too many ghosts here already for you to join them. First my sister. Then your mother,” and despite the shuffle she’d started away from the front door, Rin heard the last part as well.

“I won’t lose you too.”

…..

**Knock, knock, knock**

Rin awoke flushed and out of breath. The panic palpating in her chest.

She waited in the darkness of her room to ensure it had not been her imagination. Chocolate eyes roving over the windows on the other side of her narrow but long room. From her nest of comforters and sheets, she could just make out the fading orange glow, typical of the season, as dusk set upon them.

A soft rap set in again, confirming that someone was in fact at their front door. It was not unusual given the plethora of people that came through her grandmother’s home in request of one thing or another. The timing was off though; Rin had heard her grandmother leave hours ago. Had listened as the door opened and gently tapped shut signaling the old woman’s departure for Wednesday bingo night at the center.

Rin contemplated staying in bed but in the end, her conscience won out and she slipped from the sheets, combing her nest of greasy and wavy hair on the way down the stairs in an attempt to look better than she felt.

It wasn’t until she drew near the oaken door that she hesitated, the fear that never really left her returning with a vengeance to freeze her just shy of grasping the knob and bolt. Perhaps she should check first before opening. It seemed irrational given the inherent safety of their sleepy town, but the thoughts arrested her, heightening her already present paranoia and sending her heart fluttering in the cavity of her chest.

**Knock, knock, knock**

Closer, the knocks were loud enough to echo and filled her with a sense of dread so intense she had to cover her mouth. Rin stood on her toes to see through the peephole, using her hand to catch and prevent the uneven breaths that left her as if the person on the other side could hear them.

A blue eye looked back at her own as the person on the other side attempted to look through the peephole as well causing Rin to jerk back and off her tippy toes. She heard them shuffle against the door and realized they had already opened the screen. Rin stood again to take another peek. This time she could make out the head of a woman, long, red hair reflecting even in the minuscule light of dusk.

It was just a woman. Rin felt her heart start to slow and her hand move towards the bolt as she once again dropped to her normal height.

It was a mistake though. One she would not realize until much, much later. A misstep on her part that would never be rectified. One that could have perhaps been avoided had Kaede been there to warn her, superstitious woman she was, as most elderly were, of what it meant to have guests that knock in threes at that particular hour of dusk. The harbinger of ill fortune, of omen, of death, that such guests brought with them.

But as Rin pulled open the heavy door to further reveal the woman before her, it was already too late for contemplation. Little Rin, who had been trying so hard to hide from the dangers of the world for the last months, had just willingly opened the door to greet it.

The red-headed woman had positioned herself in the time it took Rin to work open the door and her long-form was now poised against the screen seductively. A poise she dropped as soon as her kohl-lined eyes narrowed on Rin’s disheveled form. She fought the urge to lay her hand over the hole in her worn and dirty t-shirt. Had it been three days or four since she last changed?

“Oh-” she whipped her head around haughtily, beautiful red locks twisting around her in a pleasing way. Her blue gems sliding back to Rin to look her up and down. Rin watched her beautiful face twitch in annoyance at the unexpected sight of her person.

Rin blushed at the starkness between them, and opened her mouth as if to speak, though per usual nothing would come forth. What was a model doing at her home? Better yet, what was she doing in this town? The body con dress she wore looked as if it had been painted on her statuesque form as it bent and shifted around her ample curves. Pouty lips opened then.

“I’m here to see Sesshoumaru-sama,” she finished staring at Rin as if she could see through her. Still confused as to why she was there, Rin racked her brain.

_Sesshoumaru...sama?_

Who was that? Rin racked her brain. Their town wasn’t large, everyone knew each other generally, but a Sesshoumaru? It clicked just as the woman had reached peak annoyance at Rin’s silence. A single dainty and pale hand coming out from under her flannel to point at the house next door.

The woman’s eyes followed and Rin watched the flash of realization move over her face before it settled in a contented smirk.

“Of course- I see. Thanks!” The screen was slow to close and Rin used the time to watch as the long-legged woman made her way down her lawn and up the new neighbor’s own newly renovated one. Each step of her stilettos accentuating her shapely hips and creating a steady and even staccato echo as she moved through their now completely darkened street.

Strange, Rin thought. She did not see a car or anything in front of either of their houses. Her hair shifted out of her makeshift braid as she leaned further into the now-closed screen door to look down their street. But still, there were no vehicles she could say stood out as belonging to the model visitor. A flick of light from her peripheral right side caught her attention and caused her head to swing back towards her mysterious neighbor’s home.

Rin reached over beside the door to put out their front porch light. But strangely found herself staying, cheek pressed against the screen door in front of her to better see as the beautiful woman waited under the warm light for someone to answer the door.

From here she would be able to see whoever answered. And just when she thought the model would be left again she saw the newly painted door of her neighbor’s open and a man step forward to hold it in place.

A conglomeration of snips hit her then, of all the gossip that had floated so heavily through their neighborhood as of late. Moving from house to house to invade the senses of every woman within the vicinity. She knew too much about a man she’d never met.

Probably thirties.

Successful.

Mysterious.

Devastatingly handsome.

But for all the hype she was still left woefully unprepared. His silvery mane of hair moved around his imposing form in a memorizing fashion. And even from here, she could see as the contour of muscle in his pale forearm extended as he opened the door wider for his female companion.

But the details mattered little in comparison to the whole...beautiful did not quite capture the unearthly quality he held and Rin could feel her heart palpitating without rhythm. This time for an entirely different reason. Her face pressing harder into the screen in order to better see without conscious thought. She watched the woman enter from the space he’d given her, their bodies rubbing together in the space of his entrance, and despite the way the woman had towered over Rin when she’d been at her door previously, she still appeared tiny compared to the man that now stood beside her.

“Se-shou-maru-sama”

Rin felt the aspiration leave her without comprehending, taking tangible form. The sibilance of his name leaving her lips before she could realize it had been more than a mere thought.

The woman had vanished in the home but he remained and it was only after a few moments of startling clarity that Rin realized he was looking in her direction. She could see better in her panic. Chocolate eyes widening to watch the sharp lines of his eyes zero in on her despite the distance.

Looking as if he had heard the whispered slip of the first word she’d said since returning home all those months ago...as if he could see her under the cover of darkness she now wore.

The door shook the wall as she slammed it shut, leaning against it as she bolted the lock with clumsy fingers, breath heavy and uncontrolled.

An hour later Kaede would arrive home, chiding as Rin rushed to let her in, about why she had turned off the porch light and locked the bolt.

As for Rin, despite the creeping tiredness, she laid awake until dawn, her thoughts racing, her usual pattern of sleep elusive for the first time in a long time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Big thanks to anyone who made it this far. Please leave a comment if you feel so inclined, I'd really like to see what people think of the concept. Not sure if anything like this exists already out there- either way this is heavily inspired by a mix of the movies Disturbia and the 1985 Fright Night. I know the grammar is atrocious but if you must comment on it please be kind. Improvement promised.
> 
> The italic bits are meant to be just random bits of gossip-hope that isn't too confusing. Next chapter will be more Rin centric.
> 
> Uhtceare: An old English word I've been fascinated with for a while. It specifically means the anxiety you feel when you wake up before dawn and can't get back to sleep due to dreading the day to come. It is just so beautifully specific and I felt it was an apt metaphor for something Rin is supposed to be experiencing.
> 
> Malace: Oof this autocorrected to the word malice so many times. The word is no longer in use but it's just so beautifully specific as well that I couldn't resist using it. I want it revived. It means something like an abrupt halting of the wind and is from the 17th century.


	2. Come to Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi all! Including notes at the beginning this time as while there isn't anything too overt in this chapter, I've already started on chapter three and let's just say I'm not sure if I need to update the rating to explicit or leave it as mature. The story will only get more intense from here. Tags will be added as I go. Another heads up while this is heavily inspired by the movies Disturbia and Fright Night, it will not be following the direct plot of either. 
> 
> Gotta keep people guessing! Title of the chapter comes from a OST song by the same name from the movie Fright Night, and I highly recommend giving it a listen. Especially as you near the end of the chapter. I played the instrumental the whole time I wrote this. 
> 
> Please let me know what you think of this one, I wasn't entirely happy with it but oh well. Also, huge thanks to those who gave kudos, comments, subscriptions, and bookmarks. This is the first thing I've ever written and you guys really made my day!
> 
> Italics are for the dream sequence and emphasis. Bold, right sided text is for character text responses in story.

* * *

“But first, a news alert for you this morning-” 

Kaede shuffled around the kitchen as she made her early morning tea. 

“Deputies in the area want you to be on the lookout for this twenty-seven-year-old woman,” 

The old woman looked up in time to see the news anchor gesture at the picture of a young woman smiling in front of some sort of waterfront. Her beauty obvious despite the candid photo. 

“Her name is Shira Hitabo. Authorities say she has been missing for about a week now,”

Kaede looked away to stir her tea before bringing it up to take a small sip.

“She was last seen leaving her Ishikawa condo Wednesday evening-”

Her good eye returned to the television, something was beginning to weigh on her the longer she looked at the still flashing photo of the missing girl. 

“If you have any information in regards to this missing person, please call 911.” 

Kikyo had been the very same age when…

“Now onto our weekly weather forecast. Tomorrow you can expect-”

Heat seared her cheeks and it was with a belated pause that Kaede realized she was crying. It was unfortunate, that for all her older sister had been in life, that Kaede could not unmarry the grief she felt at the loss. Reducing her memory to nothing but a pain source had always been a shame for Kaede, who prided herself on her ability to roll with the punches life had handed her. 

She pulled a towel from one of the kitchen drawers and hurriedly pressed the material to her now wet cheeks. Starting first with her left before moving to the right to gently wipe her tears. 

Only, she had to double take on the second wipe. A ruby-red smear had saturated the linen of the towel. Kaede quickly dropped it to press her hands to her eyes. The left came back clear but the right, her bad eye….

In her haste back towards her bathroom she almost tripped, still holding her eye as it continued to silently weep blood.

And although she had been known for her calm demeanor for more than fifty years, she could not help the grip of fear that seized her in the silence of her home. 

  
  


............................

  
  


Okay, so what if she couldn’t sleep. A childish sigh left her as she flopped over onto her stomach, only to flip back on her back a moment later. 

For two weeks she struggled like this, her depressed lethargy lifting enough to keep her up at all hours of the night, in some sort of twisted retribution. And while the feeling of perpetual boredom was now creeping in on her like the slowing rising sun, Rin could not deny the unexplainable improvement in her mood. 

In the first week, as October overtook them, Rin spent every daylight hour and some of the now endless night cleaning. First her room, then the house, and eventually her dreaded backpack that had been haphazardly sitting in her closet like some sort of saggy boogeyman since she left college. 

She’d even managed a shower. After which Kaede had expressed her eternal gratitude over a mug of tea one morning before a gleam entered her eye

“I see you contacted Kohaku,” her mild smirk highlighting the roundness of her face as her self-satisfaction grew. 

Only, Rin looked over at the card she’d set on her desk from where she still laid on her bed, she hadn’t. Her uncharged phone lay next to it. 

Lost in her thoughts, Rin’s eyes slipped up and over the lines of windows across from her. All three of them were opened slightly to allow the cool to enter her otherwise stuffy room. Her tooth began a gentle gnaw on her bottom lip as she sunk further into her bed and thoughts. If she was being honest, she wasn’t completely clueless about her change in demeanor, though the truth was embarrassing enough to prevent her from ruminating on the particulars for too long. 

It had started the night she saw her neighbor….the strange interaction, well, not really an interaction now that she thought about it. Her teeth released her irritated lip as the memory hit her. Just like they had said, continued to say, he really was geo-

Gah, what the hell was wrong with her? Whatever zombie virus had infected the women of their neighborhood was slowly catching up to her. She needed another distraction. 

Rin abruptly sat up. 

Her phone took forever to charge, enough time passing for her to double coat her toenails a pretty maroon color she’d found from underneath her sink while cleaning. 

But once it was on, screen glaring, she found herself frozen. It took her another hour to sort through and delete texts from her various college acquaintances. A particular desperate one caught her eye from the girl that had been her assigned roommate. 

**Rin where are you? I went to your lit class**

**and the teacher says you dropped out? Please**

**let me know-I’m really worried right now.**

Followed by another more bitter one a month later: 

**Whatever happened to you it would**

**have been nice to get a heads up**

**rather than leaving me hanging.**

**I thought we were friends.**

Rin had to clamp her eyes shut against the tidal wave of guilt, but she forced herself to respond. Writing and rewriting until she settled on something brief.

Her last text to her former roommate read: 

**I’m sorry to have worried you.**

  
  


She doubted the sincerity traveled through on the words but it was all she could say. The girl would never respond and for that Rin was grateful. It took another hour after this to sort through her emails. Systematically deleting the notices from her former professors as they expressed dismay at her abrupt dropping and departure from their classes. 

There was a voicemail from her work alerting her that she had been terminated, and to come and collect her last check, which Rin promptly deleted as well. 

And then there was nothing more. She thumbed down to find Kohaku’s missed calls and in a split-second decision, she hit the call button. A single ring sounded before Rin hung up, despite the improvement, her earlier hesitation still clawing through when it came to speaking and leaving. 

She opened a new text for him before he could try and call back. 

**Kohaku?**

And though he worked a thoroughly laborious job, and in spite of the lateness of the hour, his response was immediate. 

**So she speaks. Lol**

Small smile lighting her face, Rin pulled herself up to pace around her room as they chatted through the night. The old friends picking up exactly where they had left off. And if he noticed that the number had been calling for months with no reply was back in commission, he chose to mention nothing. 

By the end, they had agreed to hang out Friday night after he got off, at her house of course.

Rin set her phone back where it initially laid on her desk, had just released the device to tap against the wood when she saw something from the corner of her eye. 

A sudden flash of silver from outside her window. In the house next door to be more precise. 

Chocolate eyes zeroing on the man that she had been steadily trying to ignore. Unwanted thoughts perforating the delicate lining of her brain as he walked through an outer corridor of his home. 

Rin’s heart pounded at the sight of him alone. Over the years she had lived there, her room allowing her a direct view into what had once been the empty house next door, she had unknowingly memorized the layout of the rooms closest to her side. 

So that her eyes could predict and flit from the brightly lit boxes of windows a second before he arrived. The edges of the second story ones now had the thick outline of curtains around them but it did not stop her. Eyes following him with rapt attention as he moved through his hallway and finally out of sight. 

Moments later another light flicked on from the end of the second level. The reveal made her breath catch. Ornate banisters of what appeared to be his bed glared back at her. Well, she’d found his bedroom. 

From her third and farthest window she could see as he stepped further into the room and began removing the tie he wore. He had just started to unbutton his shirt, the pale flesh of his broad shoulders beginning to reveal themselves, when Rin whipped around faster than she could blink, her cheeks and ears blistering as they stained a bright shade of red. 

Something was seriously wrong with her. 

It was only after a few moments had ticked by, each one seemingly longer than the next, that a thought seized her without mercy. Her teeth returned to her lip and she found her hand reaching for her phone again, this time from the left. 

She hesitated over the send button before finally working up the nerve to thumb it down. She knew Kohaku probably wouldn’t respond until morning, which was in a few hours, so she set the device down, face first, and settled herself in to try and finally sleep. 

The screen remained open, bright blue light glaring to reflect a halo off the wooden desk surface. 

It read as follows: 

**Do you happen to have any binoculars?**

  
  


............................

  
  


Rin found herself staring as Kaede lowered to the ground one knee at a time. A woman at church had once smacked her for the very same behavior; it was sin to watch others pray and even worse to watch them grieve. To taint the sanctity of whatever went on between the dead and those they left behind. Even so, the message was as lost on her as it was when she was little and she continued to watch as Kaede’s head bent in silent prayer. 

Roots of the ancient maple in their backyard pushed back into the soft flesh of Kaede’s knees, but Rin knew her grandmother would not care. It was her ritual, a tradition of sorts. That whenever Kaede was feeling particularly distressed, over one thing or another, Rin could always find her there. Talking to the cremated remains of her sister and late daughter that were housed under her grandmother’s tree. 

Rin knew little of her great-aunt, Kikyo. She’d died before Rin had even been a thought. Though, she often got the impression that her presence lingered in her grandmother. Tidbits of habits and stories that carried the haze of untraceable origins, as if they belonged to someone else entirely. 

Her mother was the same, and despite Kaede’s sincerity when she remarked on it, Rin had the feeling there was little left in her of the woman her mother must have been. 

There were little faint outlines of remembrance that would push at her in strange moments, like the time she had gone to her first concert with Kohaku and the opener played a song she inexplicably knew all the words to. Only to later find out it had been her mother’s favorite. 

But as the years continued on, she found herself remembering less and less as the memories faded from her consciousness. Until her mother was nothing more than a ghost in life and memory. 

It was probably just an unfortunate twist of luck on her part, or some sort of karmic debt she had incurred prior, that for every faded memory gone, the one she wanted to rid herself of the most remained. 

She swallowed thickly as said memory rushed up to greet her as if she’d chanted its name in some sick sort of evocation. 

Mother had beautiful eyes, supposedly pure black and a face so beautiful Kaede had to threaten every man in town to stay away. But in Rin’s tattered memory, the remaining one, she could see nothing beyond the protruding orbit of bones that surrounded her eye. Battered beyond recognition. Could see nothing short of a concave mess of blood that had once been her mother’s face. Her broken jaw resting at an angle as if in an unending scream. How horrible her final moments must have been… 

The people of this town, the one she had been forced to return to after the untimely murder of her mother, had remarked on Rin’s countenance over the years. People said lots of things when they believed you were deaf and mute. 

_Poor thing._

_Such an odd child._

_She never speaks._

_Don’t worry she can’t hear us._

_Should have never left Shirakawa._

_Cops said it was a jealous boyfriend._

_She’s just so creepy when she stares._

_Good riddance._

_…..Three days with the body until they found her._

  
  


It had mattered little to Rin and mattered now even less now that she was an adult. They could never imagine the things she had seen. Would never fathom how earnestly she had tried to quiet herself in the hopes that underneath the churn of the world...her mother’s unremembered voice would come to speak to her, break through the crippling loneliness she had been left in. But there was nothing to be heard or had in the end except silence 

Kaede continued nonetheless heedless of her granddaughter’s unflinching gaze. Rin watched her pain seep through as prayer dissolved into sobs. A wave of guilt pressing through her at the thought that perhaps she was now another source of worry for her already frail grandmother. After all, Rin knew firsthand just how unresponsive the dead could be...as unresponsive as she had been. The mimic of her own actions placing an unbearable shame to rest on her shoulders at how she had once again shut those closest to her out 

It was a promise though, to herself, to make a sincere effort to rejoin the living. If for no one's sake but Kaede’s, a calm filled her eyes. She would do it, would do absolutely anything for her grandmother. 

Rin was abruptly brought back to reality from the scream of the teapot she’d set to boil. Kohaku was supposed to arrive any minute, and she still needed to clean up her room a bit.

With her observing cut short, Rin would not see as the branches of that old maple, the ones that had been groaning something fierce in the rough October wind, suddenly halted mid creak. Wooden prayer cards and rosaries that Kaede had tied to various branches over the years halted mid-swing to suspend in place over her grandmother’s head. All sideways and twisted in the most unnatural of ways. 

And as Kaede, who was beginning to suspect something, had her worst fears confirmed. The omen she had felt creeping over, come to life as all the holy relics, at once, dropped onto the cold and barren ground in a cacophony of clatter. 

Cut down, before their time, like her sister...like her daughter by some unknown force. 

She covered her mouth to stop the horrified gasp as her good eye shifted back towards the house, right into the kitchen window, where Rin was still preparing a cup of tea. 

Her heart twisted in her chest. 

  
  


............................

  
  


“I like what you’ve done with the place,” dark eyes roved over her freshly cleaned room and Kohaku laughed heartily at the face she shot him. 

Rin watched him move around her space in inspection. Her nerves had been sky-high earlier at the anticipation of his arrival, but as the still rail-thin boy ran a calloused and nimble hand over her leaning bookshelf, she could not stop the giddy smile from forming on her face. 

Cool, grey, light colored her room, the brightly and stark overcast of the day was allowed unhindered access by her curtainless windows. In the clarity of the light her nostalgia came slower, all slide show projection and no flash as she continued to watch him. 

There was a low, cushioned couch that sat underneath her three adjacent windows. It was there that Kohaku decided to flop down. He made himself comfortable, a crunch of springy coils sounded as he leaned back, feet apart, all the while eyeing her playfully where she sat cross-legged, opposite to him, on her bed. Her room acclimating to him as it had done a thousand times before. 

He threw a stuffed bunny from her childhood that had been made to lay prone by his abrupt slouch. It hit her right between the eyes and she couldn’t stop the twinkling of laughter that left her upon impact. He followed shortly, chuckling it up with her. 

After a thoughtful pause, he started again, “So, are you going to tell me why you’re back here and not in school?” 

The tenor of his voice carried a note of playfulness but she knew better, her eyes drifted slowly back to catch his own as well as the genuine concern that leaked from them. 

He continued, anger at the speculation beginning to seep into his words. “Had to be something pretty awful to bring you, of all people, back here.” 

After all, it had been something awful that brought her here the first time. 

A gloom settled over her then as she contemplated her options, Rin shook her head softly before responding. He’d be upset, she knew, so she settled on something stern, for both their sakes. She wasn’t ready and so she looked away from him. 

“You shouldn’t ask things you don’t want the answer to, Kohaku.” Her voice quiet and creaking from disuse. 

There was nothing to gain. A silence blanketed them and lasted long enough to be stifling.

“Are you angry with me?” she asked hesitantly when it became too much.

She heard him scoff lightly before she looked at him, “Mad at you? I’m just pissed you didn’t bring me anything back. Would it have killed you to buy a couple of souvenirs?” teasing lilt returning to his voice as he dropped the uncomfortable topic and lifted the awkward tension that had fallen over them. 

Rin leaned down to swipe the stuffed animal he’d thrown at her. The poor thing hit the window with a swift thud and she cursed her terrible aim. He hadn’t even moved. 

Kohaku laughed heartily and Rin found a smile worming its way back onto her face. 

“Shut up-I still have a paperweight somewhere around here.” 

“Hey, I’m not the one who goes off to the big city and doesn’t even come back with a keychain to show for it.”

Rin took a minute to calm her laughing, “Well if I ever go back I’ll be sure to send you a postcard.” 

In her defense, she had in fact sent him some. Three to be exact. He’d liked the one of the beached seals, had even taped it to the corner of his bedroom mirror, but neither friend brought it up. 

Rin straightened, bright eyes lighting, lip pursing in a tease as she switched topics “So, please elaborate on this Sango situation.” 

Kohaku groaned, “What’s there to say? 

Nothing in our house has changed, save her bastard husband moving in.” 

Rin giggled, delighted at his supposed torture. “Rin, I’m serious-they literally never stop having sex. Why mom and dad let them stay and traumatize me I’ll never know. I think dad wants to merge the business with Miroku’s. Why else would he allow him to bang his daughter under his roof?” 

Kohaku shook his head in disgust. 

“Are you going to move out then? Surely, you don’t have to live there still just to keep your job.”

Kohaku snorted at her and she moved across the room, still listening, to rummage around her closet. 

He replied with rapid-fire sarcasm, “Oh yes, I completely forgot about all the prime real estate around here.” His hand came up to vaguely gesture at the windows that sat behind him

Ah-hah, there it was! Rin started a casual stroll back towards him before sitting on the edge of her couch. The newly found deck of cards thumped on the cushion as she set them down. 

Kohaku twisted around to face her as she started to shuffle. Dark eyes shooting to the side and just over the seal of her window. “Besides, the guy next door took the only available place left.” 

Rin’s breath caught imperceptibly as the boy continued. “I just don’t understand it though. Why move here? Miroku even told me the house was set to be demolished by the city until he showed up. Renovations costed more than the home. Just seems-”

  
  


Clearly, luck was not in her favor tonight as her friend broached the second topic of the night that Rin wished to avoid. She coughed awkwardly before quietly interrupting. “You’re focusing too much on that guy. Don’t tell me you also have a thing for him.”

Kohaku shot her a glare and she laughed while continuing to divvy out the cards between them.

“If so, you’ll have some stiff competition. Megumi across the street has been wearing a bunch of push-up bras and walking her dogs every day.” A flash of the recent spectacle flashed in Rin’s recollection and she laughed to herself. Hoping the jab would pull him away from the dreaded topic of the man who had plagued her thoughts for two weeks 

He continued glaring at her until she looked up at him, an innocent look plastered on her face. 

“What? Those are Megumi’s big guns. You need to watch yourself, Kohaku. That lady’s lethal,” she finished with a barely restrained giggle. 

He cut her off before she could tease further, “Rin, has anyone ever told you that you talk too much?”

She tossed a wayward card at his face. This too missed the mark. Before she spoke again, uplifted by the sudden detour in conversation. 

“Well, okay so you can’t find a vacant place. Have you ever thought of moving in with someone?”

Rin eyed him playfully from over her hand of cards, “Perhaps a girlfriend?” 

Kohaku choked suddenly, a light blush dusting his freckled face. Finally, Rin thought to herself, perhaps her aim was improving after all. Excitement bubbled in her chest. 

“Tell me right now Kohaku! Oooh, what’s her name?” he shook his hands in front of him, trying to keep her at bay. Rin continued on persistently. “Who is she? Do I know her? Did she go to school with us?”

He shook his head defeated. “No, no, and no. It’s not that serious. We just talk,” a hand moved up to scratch the back of his head. A pout filled her voice at the rejection, “Kohaku, please tell me. Pretty please,” she drug out the words with a childish whine. 

“Okay-okay, I'll tell you eventually, promise. Just shut up and play-it’s your turn.” 

Detoured only slightly, Rin continued to eye him from over her cards with a grin. 

Her friend sighed audibly before an idea seized him. “Actually,” 

It was his turn to smile mischievously again. “She’s throwing a Halloween party tomorrow at her place. You could meet her then. Get all your questions out of the way.” 

A twinge of dread began to grow in her at the suggestion of leaving her home. Her response came out much less enthusiastically than her previous interrogation “I’ll think about it.” 

Kohaku smirked, satisfied with himself. Perhaps, it would take less time than the last had to get her back and running. 

  
  


They played into the night, their joy so unrestrained and so loud in its bellow that for the first time in a long time, Rin forgot to mourn the silence. 

It continued until Kohaku, tired of losing, finally stood up in parting. 

“I better get home before my dad chews me out,” he rolled his eyes before pausing. “Walk me out- I have something for you.” 

Rin’s mouth parted in surprise but she followed him out and to her porch wordlessly. 

“You stay here,” Kohaku looked down at her, “not that I expected you to leave,” he joked before separating from her to run out to his truck. He had just started to rummage around in the passenger seat when a car pulled up in front of her neighbor’s house. It came to a slow stop before the headlights stuttered out. 

Wrapped within her flannel, Rin watched as another gorgeous woman got out from the driver’s side. By this time Kohaku was heading back her way, something in his hand. Even so, Rin hardly noticed as she watched the newly-arrived woman, pace up her neighbor’s walkway and onto his porch. All heels and gauzy fabric. 

He certainly had a type...

“Rin, are you going to take them, or are you just going to let me stand here?” 

She looked down where Kohaku stood holding something out to her, still half in her distracted stupor.

“Huh,” it came as a mere stutter. 

He leaned further up the railing of her porch’s stairs.

“Don’t ‘huh’ me. It’s the binoculars you said you needed.”

Her cheeks heated as she remembered her embarrassing and hastily made request of him. Not wanting anyone to see, she quickly took the visual aide from him before pulling it under the 

safety of her flannel. 

“Ah- thanks!” Unwillingly, she found herself peeking out of the corner of her eyes to see, it was an obvious tell but Kohaku hadn’t noticed. It seemed her neighbor had been much quicker today than the last. His date was already gone, and she hadn’t even heard the open and shut of his door. 

A strange feeling started in the pit of her stomach then, moving from her gut and ever higher for every moment she thought about the beautiful woman who was now… 

Rin had to shake her head to rid the ridiculous notion. What was wrong with her? It wasn’t jealousy, but it also wasn’t nothing. It felt like disappointment, but a tad more hollow, and it made her want to go back inside. She didn’t even know him. 

Instead, in an unthinking spur, Rin turned to look down at her friend, who was about to depart for the night, and did the opposite. 

Her next words had Kohaku smirking in triumph. 

“What…” 

Was she really about to do this? 

“What do I wear to this party?” 

  
  


............................

  
  


“Kohaku,” 

Rin had only just disappeared into the house, a goofy smile still stuck on his face, when a voice called to him. He turned back towards the source. Kaede stood still behind the screen of their door and he had to look up to see her on the higher level of their porch. 

“Oh, hey Kaede-”

“Listen, boy.” A cold shift of wind accompanied the freeze that set in his body. Rin’s grandmother was never this serious with him. Had never had the air of gravity that surrounded her right now. He swallowed. 

“You need to keep a close eye on Rin for me.” 

What? He started to answer her but she cut him off before he could attempt. 

“I’m serious.” The old woman walked out and onto the porch, letting the screen close behind her before speaking again. 

“If she is away from this house, you need to be with her. I-” Kaede stopped mid-speech eyes shooting off and to the side. 

An errant wind had blown a set of chimes that hung from her porch overlay, and Kohaku watched with a growing sense of alarm as Kaede’s good eye widened frightfully. 

Chills covered his exposed arms though it was not from the cold. 

Dark eye closed tightly and held before she opened up to look upon him again, “Please. I don’t care how often you come over. Whatever you have to do, just make sure she is okay.”

And though the boy was deeply concerned with the change in his friend’s guardian, it had been a no-brainer, for Rin, he would do absolutely anything. If her grandmother, who was usually the pinnacle of calm and collected, had been frightened enough to come to him…

A determined nod left him, “Of course, Kaede-sama.” 

  
  


............................

  
  


_It was the dead of night, the silent hours, the evil hours…._

_The witching hour._

_A bead of sweat dripped down the side of her face and the back of her neck had persperated enough to drench the underside of her hair. It was the heat that drove Rin from her sheets, tripping and stumbling on them in her haste._

_She felt so strange._

_And her body continued on, as if with a will of its own down the stairs of her home. For the rest of her trek, she found herself sliding the entirety of her body in a dazed glide against the walls of her foyer, then living room, then kitchen Just to feel the cool of them against her heated flesh._

_Anything to stop the burning inferno that was beginning to singe her skin._

_It took an eternity for her to reach the sliding glass door that led to her backyard. But the heat had worn her so far down, that despite her yearning, Rin could only weakly push it open before all at once tumbling to the grass._

_Great heaves rang in the air and down the street as she gasped desperately for the cool autumn. Breathing it in with a greedy thirst that bordered on uncontrollable. Her body twisting and turning against the cool blades of grass that lay below her, anything to lower her body temperature. She wanted to cry for help._

_Instead, her body stood, taking her further into the night. Until finally she could see the great maple that rested there, as it always had._

_Despite the heaviness that sat between her eyes, and despite the unbearable temperature of her still burning flesh, she could see._

_See as a figure emerged to walk across the lowest and strongest branch of her grandmother’s tree._

_His confident steps echoing off the hollow of the carmine branch as he moved ever forward._

_Until at last, he had reached a solid place upon which to sit and wait for her._

_Her body moved closer as if compelled._

_There was no gasp, no stumble, no great show of shock as she finally recognized the figure before her. Outline of him becoming more tangible with every step she took towards him._

_Sesshoumaru._

_Each movement closer felt an oasis as the burning of her body began to subside and the ache behind her eyes began to dwindle to a dull throb. When she was close enough to have to crane her neck up, she stopped._

_Blood red eyes and a razor-sharp smile glared down at her._

_And though her mouth opened, no sound came, as she watched a clawed hand extend out to lift and sever a prayer card from the branch of the tree before flinging it to the ground._

_His smile grew more malicious with every desecration, as he cut them down one by one._

_In the end, the branches, free from their earlier enchantments, began to dance around him, withering around his form as if pulsating._

_He dropped down before her and though she should have been in fear, she found her body leaning towards him. She took a single step forward, the autumn grass grazing and stabbing at her foot as it moved._

_But at the last moment, she finally stopped, just short of his reach. Her body pleading with her to continue..._

_Imposing form bristled before he extended his arm and offered a clawed hand for her to take._

_“Come.”_

Rin awoke from her dream with a muted scream, gasping and clawing in the darkness of her room. 

  
  


............................

  
  


The velvet of the dress rubbed against her thighs with each step and with every step she felt the dread of leaving reach a new height. 

Kohaku had said it would be fun. 

The front door slid shut with a click, and despite the hour or perhaps because of it, there was not a trick-or-treater in sight. 

Unused to being out without her flannel, Rin found herself shivering in the heavy October air. Delicate hands came up to grasp and rub her bare arms in an attempt to warm them. The form-fitting dress had been a mistake, as had the cat ears, and makeup. 

She watched her breath materialize a couple of times before she finally acclimated. Each inhale allowed a little more of the frigid air to enter her body and settle in her blood. And the sharpness of it invigorated her senses

Thick clouds of smoke billowed out from chimneys across the way, and Rin watched as their misty bodies spread and seeped like molasses into the sky. They lingered, burning the crystallized cold of the night, before dispersing to perfume the air with their heady scent. And the strength of it comforted her as she waited for Kohaku to arrive. It was something she needed given her current state. Despite her early insistence, she was beginning to doubt her hastily agreed to plan. Perhaps it was too soon to be going to gatherings? 

The question held steady and without thought, she brought a hand up to chew on her nail. A nasty little habit she’d apparently inherited from her mother, or so Kaede had always told her.

What was taking him so long? He was supposed to be here already. She pulled her phone out from her bag to check if he had texted before moving to the edge of the stairs to glance further down their street. 

There was no great shift when he decided to announce his presence, but it shook her equilibrium all the same. The raven curls she had so generously created whipped with the movement as her head and body turned to find the source. Chocolate eyes locking on him instantly, as if drawn forcibly. And it wouldn’t be until later that she would consider the possibility that perhaps they had been...

“Are you going somewhere…?”

Her new neighbor stood upon his porch, arms crossed over the expanse of his chest, and despite his casual stance he still appeared taller than any man she had ever seen before

His voice was stabbing in its richness and it pierced through the space from where he leaned against the railing of his porch to where she stood, still as stone, on her own. 

Wide-eyed stare, flitted over his form, too scared to stay in one place for long. The angles of his clean-shaven face were shadowed in a way that only served to elevate his already attractive features, head rested on the post behind him, eyes closed to the world around. 

In fact, she was having a hard time believing he had even spoken at all. 

….. _to her._ Something whispered from deep within her. She remained speechless. The quiet authority he held in voice alone arresting her and stealing her thoughts as well as her tongue. 

The silence lasted too long. A gasp left Rin as his eyes suddenly caught her own, the sharpness of them sliding open seamlessly to reveal his molten, amber stare. 

The quiet intensity of it compelled her, and a wave of raven tresses obscured her vision momentarily before shifting back with the force of her head shaking out a silent, no. 

“Oh….,” His eyes took their time traveling down her body, pausing on the swell of her hip, before his brow rose, the implication clear from the motion alone. Though his handsome face remained stoic. 

The wind blew strongly then but Rin did not notice, all of her attention was focused on the man before her, as an unfamiliar heat began to spread throughout her body. An attractive blush lighting the naïve girl's face, overpowered by his presence alone. It would prevent her from noticing the subtle flare of his nostrils that accompanied the gust as he likewise took her in. 

Rin’s lips parted as if she was going to speak, but the words left her before they could even form in her head. What did she want to say to him? Why did he need to know where she was going? But more importantly, why had she felt the need to lie about it? 

Amber eyes shut her out again, this time a faint smirk lifting his well-formed mouth. 

Embarrassment seized her then, and finally out from under the intensity of his gaze, she found her own flicking to her front door. 

He spoke again before she could act and just as before the words pinned her in place. 

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” 

Her lips parted as if to speak before she sealed them shut again. She wondered if he could see the tangible heat of her face as a fierce blush set in. Wondered if he could read her mind….or worse, could see the strange dream she’d had about him painted over her flesh. 

“I was merely asking a question.” 

Her phone buzzed then and she almost dropped it. Kohaku had texted her. 

  
  


**Rin, I’m so sorry! Something came**

**up and I have to head back home.**

**I promise I’ll make it up to you.**

Relief flooded through her at the turn of change. Though she still shot off a message back to ensure Kohaku was okay. 

That still left the situation she found herself in now. One part of her begging to leave, the other tempted to stay...

When she looked back up he was staring at her again, unflinchingly, and the intensity of his eyes bore down into her own. And though a voice from the back of her head was screaming at her to go back inside, scurry to the safety of her room, another one was beginning to overtake it. One that was becoming increasingly clearer as it took shape, molding itself from some deep, dark, and _lonely_ well within her. 

She let out a nervous laugh and her voice was soft as spoke to him, waving her phone in gesture, 

“My plans....” Rin swallowed nervously, “They uh, got c-canceled.” 

She cursed the stutter that had entered her voice and forced herself to look away from him and towards the paneling of her house, embarrassed beyond belief. 

Here she was, standing awkwardly, dressed like a cat, trying to speak to the god of a man before her. Foolish did not even begin to describe it. 

Clearly, he had options if his late-night visitors were anything to go by. Did she really think she-

“Hn,” She was abruptly pulled back by his soft acknowledgment. “How unfortunate,” there was the soft lilt of understanding pity as he spoke, so faint it bordered on mocking. He held her gaze a pause, taking her in with a level of dissection that she would never understand 

And though Rin was a young woman in figure and mind, she was still way too innocent to fully appreciate the implications of his next words. “Perhaps, you should make new ones.” 

Insinuation flying well above her as she smiled brightly at him, and his eyes followed the motion with rapt attention. “You’re probably right,” she laughed lightly, still trying to calm the rapid swirl of butterflies inside her stomach, still misunderstanding.

Feeling it was a polite and natural conclusion to their interaction, Rin started to head back towards her front door. It wasn’t until the last second, after she had pulled open the screen, that the feelings welling inside overcame her, though the result was subtle.

“G-good night,” she said soft enough for him to hear.

And just as she was about to close the front door behind her, he responded, the deepness of his voice vibrating the air softly. 

“Good night, _Rin_.” 

  
  


............................

  
  
  
  


Rin entered the house giddy, heart still thundering in her chest at how bold she had been. Even if it had been bolstered by the false confidence her outfit had bestowed upon her, she had still spoken to the mysterious Sesshoumaru. Girlish joy squealing through as she realized belatedly, that he knew her name. 

Her steps felt light as she made her way to the kitchen, still lost in thought. So it was a surprise to see her grandmother still up past her usual hour of retirement. Kaede acknowledged her tiredly, before setting down a mug of tea she had been nursing. 

“You weren’t gone long.” Rin took in the haggard appearance of her grandmother. Something was worrying her as of late, though she’d been less than forthcoming. It did nothing but further Rin’s suspicions that she had somehow worn her grandmother down with her depressed behavior. 

She passed her elder to make her own cup of tea, pressing a soft, comforting hand on her hunched shoulder as she went by. Anything to ease her burden. 

“Kohaku had to cancel, I basically just sat on the porch for ten minutes.” 

Rin could have sworn she heard a sigh of relief come from Kaede. But when she returned to their island to sit with her she said nothing more, no indication, just continued to watch the news stories as they flashed on the screen in their living room. 

Rin had just begun to open her mouth in question, perhaps to see if Kaede had been the one to tell their new neighbor her name, perhaps to see what she thought about him…

When a particular flash on the screen caught her attention. 

The woman in the picture looked at her, seemed to see right through her, just as she had weeks ago when she stumbled upon their door by accident in search of…..him. Rin found herself speechless, breathing coming out faster than before as she watched the anchor describe the situation. 

It was for sure the woman that had accidentally stumbled upon their door, Rin was absolutely certain. A shiver ran through her as she did the math, matching time and place. 

Missing three weeks. 

Missing. 

Blue eyes. 

Red hair. 

In a moment her grip faulted and her cup slipped from her hand, remnants of her tea and the loose pieces of leaves splattering over the countertop. However, in a most peculiar fashion, the ceramic mug did not shatter upon impact. The brunt of it slamming into the wooden floor below with a dull thud before bouncing twice more…

**Knock.., knock, knock**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope to see you guys again for chapter three.


	3. Nipping at My Heels

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: This chapter contains a nonconsensual situation and violent overtones. Please read at your own discretion

* * *

She was a fucking coward. A major one. Rin brought her hands up to run them through the nest of hair that had priorly been a braid. 

There was an oscillating tide within her, a muddle of mishmashed and pieced together feelings that were as knotted as her hair currently was. 

Perhaps she was making this a bigger deal than it needed to be; she hadn’t seen anything particularly incriminating. All she had witnessed was the woman enter his home and…well that was literally it. That didn’t necessarily mean he was guilty of anything. Maybe they just, you know whatever, and then she went on her merry way home. 

Rin sighed again before tossing her head back against her pillow. 

On the other hand…

Rin shot a fearful glance at the windows across her bedroom. 

Perhaps, he had lured her to his place. Maybe he was even practiced at it, seducing victims. Innocent victims. Using his unearthly looks to just swoop in and BAM. Dead before they even knew what hit them. 

Rin shot up to a sitting position frightened by her own train of thought. No, no, she was only missing, nothing suggested death or foul play, the anchor's words repeating in her memory. 

“Get it together, Rin,” She muttered to herself. Wavy locks of hair flew around with the force of her stubborn head shake. 

The predicament remained though and as if on cue her phone lit the darkened interior of her room a pale shade of blue. Kohaku was calling again, probably worried half to death with her sudden silence over the last week, but he would have to wait. At least until she figured out what to do. 

Another thought rushed through the distressed girl. Perhaps, she wasn’t even the right woman. Maybe, in her depressed stupor, she had failed to properly register her features and the woman on the news was just a substitute for her piss-poor memory. An image flashed then of the ruby-red hair and sapphire eyes. It was certainly plausible….

Only, it wasn’t. The reports were endless in their repetition, “Last seen leaving her Ishikawa condo.” 

But if Rin was truly honest, more honest than she cared to be, a piece of her knew. Was untangling itself from the mess of her feelings and doubts to become clear. As the hollowed sound of stilettos echoed in her head on repeat. The woman was real, it had been her, and her last sighting was crossing the threshold of her neighbor’s door. 

Sesshoumaru’s door. 

It was with this final thought that Rin finally gathered the nerve, scrolling through missed calls from Kohaku to enter and hit the green-lit button. All before her brain could talk her back out of it. 

It rang twice, enough time to hang up, enough time to pretend this wasn’t a thing and to forget all about it. 

“Hello, nine one one what is your emergency?” 

There was a brief hesitation on her part, a stutter in the chest and throat as she realized what she was about to do-

“Hi, my name is Rin Akamatsu and I need to speak with someone about a missing person,” 

  
  


............................

  
  


“I’m just waiting on the detectives to contact me back,”

“Rin, you can’t be serious…,” 

She didn’t respond. Kohaku moved towards where she sat, crouched, and using the seal of her window as an elbow perch, in order to steady the binoculars she was currently looking through. Every muscle tensed as she focused on keeping tabs on the house next door. She’d been spying since her call about the missing woman, hoping to find something, anything to give them further. 

Maybe they’d even find her alive. That is if they would call her back…

A blackness overtook her vision and Rin almost had a panic attack until she realized it was just Kohaku’s hand. He’d been intent on snatching the binoculars from her but had instead settled on blocking her view. 

“Kohaku!” 

She practically shouted before swatting him away, moving further down the couch, still in her kneeling crouch, and resuming her watch on the little helper. He was on the second floor, doing some menial task. Rin’s eyes had stayed glued to him as he moved around, going out of her line of sight with a nail in between his lips and hammer in hand. 

“Is this because I messed up our Halloween plans? I told you I was sorry,”

Rin shot him a look, “Of course not-I’m telling you Kohaku, that lady from the news, I saw her going into this guy’s house. I saw her with him! What don’t you understand?” 

Kohaku backed away from her as a hand came up to rub over his face and the five o’clock shadow on it. He’d been too worried about her when he rushed over, first thing in the morning, to check on her after what felt like a thousand calls and missed texts. 

He tried to calm his nerves, but one look at her hunched and stalking as she continued to spy on them had him worked up. He’d dealt with quiet Rin, but this, this was something else entirely. 

“This can’t be healthy. Especially right now,-you just got home Rin.”

It would fall on deaf ears despite the heartfelt sincerity behind the words, despite the genuine concern. 

“I think he may have her just tied up somewhere,” Rin muttered more to herself. 

This too would fall on deaf ears. Her friend cared little, even if what she was saying was true, his main concern was her well-being. Kaede had literally just requested his help in caring for Rin in her fragile state and now this was happening. It had taken one night for a mania to seize her. 

“Or, he could have killed her already.” 

“Rin please, stop,” this time he really did take the binoculars from her. Abruptly ripping them from the small girl so she had no choice but to face him, annoyed and distraught at his unneeded distraction. 

He tried to reach for her hand, “Come on, let me take you to breakfast or something-”

It was quiet but it stopped him all the same, “No, I’m not leaving.” 

An exasperated huff left him. She was literally regressing right before his eyes. 

“Look, those detectives or whatever can still call you on your cell, even if you are away from home. Just come-”

She wasn’t listening though, her eyes were instead intently focusing on something out her window. Shallow and rapid puffs of air leaving her as the panic began to rise within her. His hair whipped around as he tried to find what was causing her distress. 

A couple was moving up her neighbor’s walkway and towards his door, hands clasped together, he recognized the woman instantly. 

“Look, Rin- that’s Kagome Higurashi,” he turned to face her again even though her eyes were still wide and horrified. 

“She’s one of Sango’s best friends. Remember? Do you think a girl like that would be entering the house of someone if she thought he attacked a woman in his home?” 

Rin swallowed, her expressive eyes shimmering with fright, “But the man, he looks like Sesshoumaru. Wh-what if they are going to attack her together? What if she needs our help? Please go and stop her Kohaku-” 

At the last sentence, she finally turned her eyes on her friend. And his heart twisted at the sight. What the fuck happened at that school? His hands fisted as a wave of anger seized him. Whatever it was, it had made Rin paranoid beyond reason. 

He looked back over as the couple disappeared inside. He had no idea who the guy with her was, had never seen or met him in his life. In fact, if he was remembering correctly, Sango had said Kagome had up and left years ago, so there was that added mystery as to why she was even back. But he had no choice- his eyes turned back to her before he spoke again. “I know him. He’s really cool. Rin, just chill out. I’m telling you if they like him you shouldn’t be this worried.” 

The lie had come easily enough even if it didn’t sit well. He watched her nibble at her lip and continue to watch as the silver-haired man and dark-haired woman moved along the edges of sight the windows allowed. He’d ask Sango about it once he got home. After all, stranger things had happened than girls showing back up in their hometown. As he had found out first hand.

The unwanted memory returned to hit him then. On Halloween night, he’d been on his way to Rin’s house when a fog overtook his truck. It seemed to have come out of nowhere. Seeping and pouring from the treeline that bordered both sides of the remote, country road that led through their town. Eerie was putting it mildly. He’d traveled through it for what felt like ages, having to slow to a crawl as the thickness of it grew. 

While the fog was not an unusual occurrence for the mountainous region, it was what happened afterward that had him weirded out. 

Kohaku had only traveled a mile, maybe more according to the dash on his truck, but when he finally cleared the mist the truck came to a sudden lurch. Completely out of fuel. 

He _never_ ran the company truck to the fumes. In fact, he had filled the tank up less than an hour before he set out for Rin’s house. Unexplainable as it was, it was even more concerning when the gas they kept on hand for the mowers was gone. Every single container, empty. His dad had been pissed once he came to retrieve him. 

Kohaku pulled himself from his dark train of thought with a shake of his head. It would do no good for Rin if he too got swept up in some weird conspiracy theories of his own about mysterious mountain mist and its gas stealing properties. He would never tell her about this event. 

She was once again spying. A combination of his exasperation with the events and Rin made his tone too harsh.

“Rin you’re acting crazy. Stop it, right now.” 

It would cut her deep. But she would never tell him this. She found it hard to even speak after his poorly worded statement, yet she did, voice quieter than ever as it reached him over the invisible wall that was beginning to build between them again. 

“Leave the binoculars on your way out, Kohaku.” 

  
  


............................

  
  


“Hello, can I speak to Ms. Akamatsu?” 

“This is her.” 

“I’m calling in regards to a tip you left on the Shira Hitabo case,” 

Rin paused what she had been doing to take a seat on her floor as the woman continued. 

“My name is Miyu Suzuki and I am the detective in charge of the case. Would you be able to take time and schedule an interview with my partner and me sometime this week?” 

Rin’s heart palpitated at the thought of leaving-

“Well, um no,”

The woman’s clear voice met her ears like a shock of ice water, “No?” 

Rushing to clarify, “I mean, I’m just unable to leave my um home. I’m-” 

Rin stuttered as she thought over the phrasing. “I just never leave.” 

She heard the woman on the other end give a muted hum, but there was nothing understanding in the tone. 

“I see. I suppose it would make sense given how far out you live. Would you be able to make time for a teleconnection interview then? We can skype and take down the details of what you remember that way if you prefer.” 

“Yes of course,” 

Internally, Rin released a sigh of relief at not having to leave the safety of her home. 

“What date and time work best for you?” 

  
  


............................

  
  


His schedule was odd and not patterned in the least. Rin could hardly keep an eye on him before he was gone, only to arrive again a day later without cue. The man was certainly an enigma. 

Right now was different. Sesshoumaru had been home all day and it was only belatedly that Rin noted she had been watching him the entire time. Her locked knees were beginning to quietly protest and she knew she’d need a break soon. Chocolate orbs continued to take him in regardless, undeterred, as he moved about his home, seemingly unaware of his little bespectacled audience. 

He moved with a surety and grace that befit him even if the setting did not. And Rin would be lying if she said it wasn’t addicting in some way...to watch him. Someone so extraordinarily handsome doing something as mundane as reading the paper. A castle she thought to herself, that is what he needed, not a home. It looked too quaint to belong to someone so...regal. It didn’t help that his little helper, the one with the unnatural pallor, was constantly bowing lowly to him every time they crossed paths. Though it was never returned or acknowledged by the imposing man. How strange… 

At about noon he had moved up the stairs. His reappearance in the hallway that led to his bedroom caught her attention. But instead of heading towards his room, he stopped at the door just before it before opening the oak door that resembled the ones in her own home and entering. 

He did not close it and Rin sat up to better see the newly exposed space. From what she could make out through the frame of the door it was some sort of office. 

It must have been centered directly as when he sat, it was right in the frame of the door, allowing Rin an unhindered view as he worked on something on the desk before him. Three times. Only three times did he look up and off. But each time he stared into space, Rin would wait with bated breath for his next move. How it could be so riveting to her was a complete mystery. Or so she told herself. 

It merely took a recollection of Shira, the missing girl’s new report, to bring Rin back to task anyway. She had a purpose. 

Perhaps an hour or two after dusk was when a movement finally caught her attention. The darkness of the night was compounded by the barely visible moon. So when a pair of headlights, familiar ones, pulled to a stop in front of his house, Rin was able to pinpoint and recognize them in seconds. It was the woman from before Halloween. Even from her place upstairs she could hear as the rumbling of the engine was abruptly cut. 

Her exploration of her was more thorough this time despite the cover of night. Still dressed to the nines, the height of her impressive as well, Shira had probably been around the same footage, and Rin could not help but compare her own meager height to the leggy woman below. That was now heading towards Sesshoumaru’s door, every step accentuated by a clack of her heels. 

Said man had been casually making his way down since she’d arrived and before she’d even cut the engine. As soon as he opened the door, she was on him, rubbing and leaning herself flush against him, pulling at his clothes with abandon. 

A flush of embarrassment seized her as she saw a hand snake from where it had been pressed against the expanse of his chest to instead cup him between the legs. The binoculars made a thud as she put them down on the window seal. While she needed to still keep an eye, perhaps it was unnecessary to see all of this. She watched enough to see as the woman led him towards a velvet-tuffet, antique of a chair before pushing him to sit. Enough to see as the same woman used the grand, and rolled armrests to lower herself over him in a straddle before abruptly lifting herself and turning away. A hand came up to feel the heat of her face. 

She needed a distraction and break. After a brief stretch, Rin moved to sit on her bed before retrieving her phone from under her pillow, though she already knew what she would find. It wasn’t like she had a ton of friends. Kohaku’s name still glared at her, the blue light illuminating her face in the darkened room. He’d called since their little argument. 

What did surprise her though was a text from Sango. 

**Rin! Kohaku was telling me you were**

**back! I missed you so much girly-**

**When are we hanging out? I have so**

**much to tell you.**

Rin tapped out of it. She wasn’t ready to have to dodge another one of her friends. Although she had always been closer to Kohaku in age and bond, Sango still showered her with an undeserved attention she seemed to reserve solely for Rin. And Rin had enough guilt as it was between her grandmother and Kohaku. 

Some time passed like this with Rin flicking through various apps on her phone, though for every hour that passed her eyes became a little heavier. And just as her exhaustion was about to overtake her, she heard it. 

A scream. 

Rin wasted no time in rushing towards her earlier spot, dropping her phone on the tattered cushion beside her in order to lift the binoculars back towards her face. 

Her messy braid swung to and fro as she frantically searched, knowing it had been the woman in his home. It took a while but a sudden movement on the ground level caught her attention. 

It was the woman and she was running. Rin’s own heart quickening in lockstep as she watched the obviously panicked woman flit out of sight. 

The time had come, she was finally getting something, but...she had not been even remotely prepared. Should she try and record it with her phone as evidence or something? The dark-headed woman reappeared, her movements jerky and erratic as she moved about. And Rin, who had set the visual aid down as she internally debated what to do, quickly brought the binoculars back up to zero in on the clearly distraught woman. 

She was in her panties and bra but nothing else. And Rin watched in growing horror as the model continued to look around as if afraid of an ambush, before suddenly darting to a door that led out and to the side of her neighbor’s deck. The glass paneling of it hid nothing as the woman frantically pulled at the handle with no success. Her breath caught at the same time that the woman became still, turning to put her back against the door, body curling in preparation to hide. 

The reason became clear as a movement on the stairs drew Rin’s gaze. Sesshoumaru was descending, shirtless, silver hair gently swaying around his long and muscled torso as he made a slow and… if Rin wasn’t mistaken, deliberate descent. And though his face was as impassive as it had been when she watched him in his home earlier, she could not help but notice the stalk. She knew he was hunting for that woman….like a predator after its prey. 

She watched until he pulled out of sight before swinging back towards the still cowering woman. 

It was deceivingly still as Rin continued to watch the silent show. She swallowed thickly as she watched the woman chance a look around the corner of the small hallway that led to the door she’d tried to escape from. It took but a moment and before Rin could blink the woman had slipped around said corner and out of her line of sight. 

Another pause of stillness followed. The dark brown and pale blur of the woman were all she saw as she made for her final destination, the front door. The next sight had Rin dropping the binoculars in a clatter that would have woken the dead. She watched as a disembodied pale arm reached out just as she was passing by a darkened cove of the living room, there was a flash as it snatched her under the cover of darkness as well. When had he even gotten there?

Rin bolted then. Out her own door, shaking as she ran down the stairs, only to trip and fall on the rug in the foyer. The material sliding further away and out from under her in her haste to lift herself back up. Before she was even to her grandmother’s door she was screaming. Chanting really. 

“Sobo, Sobo, Sobo- please wake up-please!” 

Kaede was a deep sleeper but the banging on the door was deafening as Rin scrambled towards the only person she thought could help. 

The elder whipped open her door without even covering her bad eye, “What is it, girl? What’s the matter with you? What’s happened?”

But Rin was already dragging her now alert grandmother up the stairs. 

“He got her- oh my- he’s attacking her!” 

Kaede continued a slow gait up the stairs, the fastest her old knees would allow. 

“Rin, who? Who’s attacking someone?” 

Rin didn’t miss a beat as she bounced at the apex of the stairs in wait, anxious to show her elder. She needed to call 911 as well but her phone was in the room still. Kaede reached the top just as her granddaughter bolted back through her open bedroom door to retrieve her phone. 

Where was that stupid thing? How could she be so dumb, wasting precious time like this? 

“Answer me, girl!” 

Rin was pulled from her cushion lifting to face her grandmother. Kaede took her in wide-eyed as she regarded her still frightened granddaughter. 

Still shaking, Rin spoke. “The man next door,” at this she flung a hand to point at the window behind her. “He’s got a woman in his home and he’s attacking her- I saw it!”

At this Kaede shifted her stare beyond the small girl and Rin watched as her good eye moved over the scene, the light from his home illuminating her wrinkled face slightly. 

The old woman growled, “Girl, there is nothing over there.” 

The raven waves of hair that had fallen out of her braid shook with the force of Rin’s denial. 

“No- Sobo you didn’t see it-” 

At this Kaede abruptly turned her by the arms to face the still unhindered view of Sesshoumaru’s home….It was empty. 

As it had been before, but there was one notable difference, and the sight of it lowered the galloping heartbeat in her ears enough for her to notice the rumble of an engine. Headlights lit the pavement. The car sat stationary for a few moments before pulling away. The woman...had seemingly left. 

But….,

“I-I-but I saw it-” the stammer persisted in its efforts. 

“Rin, what adults get up to in the privacy of their homes is their own business. I hoped you wouldn’t still be this naive after college. He’s a grown man for god’s sake,” 

Her head shook of its own accord as she continued to mutely take in the scene, mouth agape in disbelief. 

A thought hit her then, “Sobo, we need to go down there and-” 

“You most certainly will not be going down there, young lady. Are you out of your mind? “

Kaede whipped her back around by the arms again to face her. Even brought her in close so the aspiration of her words could bounce off her face. Just as Megumi, who believed she lacked comprehension, had done. 

“Even if there is something, you are not to leave this house. Do you understand me? You’re safe here and you’re safe with Kohaku. Stop this right now and go to bed before your imagination can get the best of you again.” 

At this she released her. Kaede cast a single, lingering look over her shoulder, but it was with her blind eye so she saw nothing. 

Not a thing as her still shocked granddaughter laid herself down as ordered. Heart rate still racing to thump against her mattress as she laid flat. 

Just as Rin would see nothing as a smatter of crimson came forth to suddenly paint the windows of her neighbor’s first-floor living room.

It would be gone by dawn. 

  
  


............................

  
  


“Rin, can I call you Rin?” 

Said girl nodded mutely at the two detectives on the screen before her. The audio was delayed but detective Miyu’s voice came through as clearly as it had on the phone. All the razor-sharp precision her job required of her, dripping through.

“Are you absolutely certain it was Shira you saw and not someone else?” 

Exasperated for the tenth time, Rin fired back the same way she had before. “Yes! I’m a hundred and ten percent sure it was the woman from the news. I saw her going into his home.” 

Her hands were grasping the edge of the chair she sat on with a white-knuckled grip. What was wrong with these two? Just like her grandmother and Kohaku, they were not taking her seriously at all. Did they truly believe she would lie about something like this? 

The female detective was about to begin again when her male companion interrupted. There was a brief look between them and it was clear from her deference to him that he was some sort of superior. He was an older man, probably in his mid-sixties. Face rough, wrinkled, and above all stern. 

“Ms. Akamatsu please confirm the date again.” 

There was no expression in the gaze he used on her. “I already told you it was October the fifteenth, sometime in the evening. She woke me up after she knocked on the door.” Her eyes narrowed in remembrance as she looked up. “It was probably arounds seven or eight at night.” 

The male detective cut right to the chase after that. “I’m going to be frank with you, Ms. Akamatsu. We have multiple and promising leads that point to Shira’s whereabouts on that night and this information directly conflicts with that timeline.” 

Rin sat stunned and silent. That was impossible, she’d seen her-

“It is a serious offense to waste the time of investigators-”

“I’m not lying! I know what I saw-there’s something not right with him. I know he did something-” 

She knew she sounded hysterical but they were about to blow her off when a potential kidnapper was lurking right next door to her. 

The man looked at her, evaluating for a minute, before reaching beyond the laptop they were using to skype with her to retrieve something. 

His hooded eyes roved over the paper he held and without looking up as he addressed her again, “Rin, your name is familiar can you confirm your age?” 

He gave her another evaluating stare, “I’m twenty.” 

Rin finished with a confused stare. What did that have to do with anything? 

The old man’s eyes seemed to pierce through her and his next words would shock Rin to the core. 

“I worked a case about thirteen years ago. A woman was found murdered in her apartment. Her daughter found her body and went on to live with relatives…,”

The implication was clear and Rin could not hide her annoyance. “And?” 

He had some nerve. She didn’t need a reminder of her mother’s gruesome fate. It was utterly irrelevant. 

The paperwork made a shuffling noise as he signed out his nose. 

“All I’m saying is that sometimes when we go through a trauma like that, we can’t help but see wrongdoing everywhere...even when there is none. Perhaps, you are reading too much into the situation. Ms. Akamatsu.”

Was he seriously suggesting…

Detective Miyu nodded at the still gaping Rin, something final in her actions as she moved to shut down the now stagnated interview. “We’ll contact you if we need any more information. Please have a good evening-”

But Rin had already slammed the laptop shut with a resounding click, imagining it was their heads she had just rammed into the keyboard. 

  
  


............................

  
  


_The pause was brief. Enough time for the primal cogs of recognition to cue up and click together in her mind. Danger._

_It took her less than a second to move, feet pounding against the pavement of her campus in a dead run. Just as she had rounded the edge of the library another set of steps beyond her own began, ominous in their echo and promising in their pace. Another would join after that. And another after the one before it._

_By the time Rin thought to scream it was already far too late, her uneven and heavy heaves for air preventing her from projection. Besides, screaming never saved anyone she thought morbidly. One of many thoughts that raced alongside to keep pace as she tried to find a way to safety._

_A voice arose then to cackle, and the ringing echoes it left to bounce around the brick-lined buildings were enough to bring a panicked tear to her eye. They were going to get her…_

_“Girl, we just want to talk,”_

_Desperate, a sob broke the air around her and it took a moment for Rin to realize it had come from her own throat. It set the three chasing her off again and another hallowed and untamed laughter met her ears._

_“Where the fuck is she going?”_

_A cacophony of clamor sounded, the boys following her were nothing but excited hoots and whoops and pounding feet as they gained on her further. The sound was deafening. The roar of it expanding to scrape the walls of the campus buildings that she continued to weave through. Could no one else hear it? Would they hear it over the beat of her heart? The one so strong it shook her body to a tremble with the exertion._

_The wolves continued their pursuit. So hot on her tail that their growls resounded around the deserted corners and twists of the path a second before she even took them. One of them hollered again and another one’s voice rose in response but she would not hear it over the ever-increasing pump of blood that rushed through her ears. The anticipatory howl of a hungry pack right before the kill._

_Rin could hear nothing beyond the snarls of those behind her, could feel nothing but their hot gush of breath on the nape of her exposed neck, could see nothing more than her dismal chance of escape becoming even smaller, and could taste nothing but the undiluted fear that had bubbled up from her chest to sit on her tongue._

_Penance. It was her penance for avoiding death her first time around. She’d always been on borrowed time- to walk away unscathed from her mother’s murder…._

_This thought was made concrete a moment later._

_The cobblestone path between the language building and the science hall had been waiting. It had been built over the roots of an old oak at the university's opening over a century ago. But it was only now that its vengeance at being overlooked and overlaid came to fruition. A single, gnarled root lay extended and ready for just the right moment, from where it had parted and broken through the old bricks of the path to expose itself._

_And it was on this root that Rin’s foot would catch, and on this stone that she would fall, face first, prone, and helpless as the fate that had missed her the last time finally caught up_

_She was roughly jerked up by her backpack and into the body of some unknown assailant who stood behind her. His arms were steel restraints over her own._

_“Did you really think you were going to get away, bitch?”_

_And though they were merely boys she swore she could feel the muzzle of his snout against her neck. Ravenous._

_The pack leader circled. “Think you’re too good to talk to me you stupid slut?”_

_Pure fear and the strangling beat of her heart kept her from processing the words. Kept her from processing the thousands of thoughts that swirled around her head._

_The one that had accosted her in the library moved in with something predatory in his eyes, to pull at her hair and roughly grope her breast._

_The foreign sensation and resulting revulsion forced her to act. Rin turned her head from the one in front of her, only to lean over to bite, hard, into the arm of the one that restrained her._

_Her already scraped hands and knees met the cobble-stone path for the second time that night as the one she bit roughly shoved her to the ground with a snarl._

_Before she knew it, someone was on her hand, sneaker pressing her delicate limb into the stone below as another pulled at her hair and backpack._

_There was a searing pain as one pulled hard enough to rip the straps apart and take the defending pack off of her person. Their filthy flesh caressed her own as one of them went for her shirt. Rin could do nothing but curl further into herself as the light material also began to give._

_It was then that fate would intervene for the second time tonight. Distracted in his anger at being bitten, and errant in his hurry to get at their prize, the boy would toss the offending backpack away, heedless of its trajectory._

_The pack that had weighted Rin down earlier, hit the light post with a cling before sliding down. Along the way it would tap, with just the needed amount of pressure, a button. One of the various panic buttons that the campus had installed only a month before._

_A glancing flash of bright blue shocked her attackers, rendering them stone as they looked up to see. There was a rush after that as they panicked and pushed at each other in their haste to flee. Disregard for her presence until the end, as one of the would-be wolves kicked her side during his getaway. The force of it would stun her further and push the faint breath she had left from her lungs as she found herself on her back, limbs in a haphazard order. Hands and knees bleeding._

_The light continued overhead and the night sky looked down on her in witness. When she could no longer hear their fleeing steps she shut her eyes against it. The tear tracks rewet with the action as it forced some latent tears to fall. The blue twist of light would press through the thin flesh of her eyelids before disappearing, only to return again a moment later, before repeating._

_Her soul left her then, the piece she’d reserved, vacating on the wind of the last shuttered breath she released. An eye stared at her, a bloodied face, crushed in with force, jaw broken and slack as the memory of her mother assaulted her._

_Eyelids fluttered open…._

To the darkness of her bedroom. 

When Rin awoke she was already crying, adrenaline she’d had since the attack still running rampant through her veins. Pumping her heart into an unrhymed gallop. The nightmares had returned with a vengeance. 

Rin could hardly believe how foolish she had been, to believe she had found relief. She sat up to cradle her face as another rack of sobs left her unbidden. She could not remember the last time she cried like this. Intense grief washing over her as the events from school came back and the events of late caught up to her. 

No one, absolutely no one believed her….and she was starting to join them. Perhaps, she had been mistaken. Trauma-ridden brain firing up imaginary connections where there was nothing particularly extraordinary. Maybe, that girl had been different. And despite the weird happenings, maybe her new neighbor wasn’t some psychotic killer. Well, there was absolutely nothing to prove a killer, but maybe he wasn’t a kidnapper either. 

The thought did not ease the crippling loneliness nor the pain that accompanied the feeling of being utterly lost with seemingly no one to save her this time. Rin curled in on herself and continued to cry silently. 

In the morning, she will wake again in the familiarity of her childhood room, a twinkling of dawn lighting her wall in a pleasant and nostalgic way. The pillow will be heavy, practically saturated with her sadness, another familiar tradition from her youth. Kohaku, Kaede, and now….. Sesshoumaru will all be there per usual. And Shirakawa will be as it was the day before.

But the feeling will not leave her.

Something, whether it is the town or herself, she knows not, has been irrevocably changed. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi all, please let me know if what you think about it so far. I am still reworking the order of events as chapter three became chapter three AND four in terms of length. Also, I didn't want to progress things too fast for Rin and Sesshoumaru. Gotta love a dragging out of it. Will probably post chapter four within the next 48hrs and it will definitely have our first real SessRin interaction. This one was more to set the scene of what is to come. I've decided rating will be updated to explicit but I've got a couple of more chapter before I need to do that. Tags have been updated accordingly. Stay tuned and thank you! 
> 
> Hope it comes through clearly, but the dream sequence in italics is supposed to be Rin's actual recollection of what sent her running home to Shirakawa. 
> 
> Bolded, right-sided text is character texts response in story. 
> 
> *Sobo is the word grandmother but for yourself only in Japanese.


End file.
